


cold nights and warm bodies

by lottielotsof



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lottielotsof/pseuds/lottielotsof
Summary: Matthias' sleep is haunted by nightmares. Nina doesn't know how to help, but she wants to.
Relationships: Matthias Helvar/Nina Zenik
Comments: 1
Kudos: 43





	cold nights and warm bodies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [everythingistemporary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingistemporary/gifts).



Most nights, Matthias wakes up in a cold sweat. He lays there on his back, stagnant, staring at the ceiling as if it was gonna fall on them at any moment. Nina thinks he looks like a Ravkan Saint statue on those nights. Cold and distant. Tragically beautiful. It breaks her heart just a little. 

Nina tries to help him, but she doesn’t quite know what he needs. She lays a hand on his shoulder, hoping to comfort him, to tie him back to their bed, to warm him back to life. Instead, she feels him flinch. It’s faint, barely noticeable if Nina wasn’t always acutely attuned to Matthias’ every breath, every move. It breaks her heart more.

But Nina doesn’t relent. In her most delicate and quietest voice, afraid speaking too loud would scare him away, make him run, she whispers, “Matthias? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Go back to sleep.” He tries to remain impassive, but Nina can hear the pain. She shuts her eye, breathes out her heartbreak, nestles her head against his shoulder. 

“I love you,” she murmurs. 

Matthias sighs, something short and pained, but inhabited by more life than he had shown yet. Nina feels him reinvigorate against her and a thick and warm rush invades her veins. “I love you, too.” Then, quieter, “Go back to sleep.”

Nina wants to help, but Matthias won’t let her, so she goes back to sleep. Those nights, she never dreams.

That night, however, Matthias wakes up crying. The soft sobs shakes Nina from sleep and she tentatively opens her eyes. He is laying as he usually is, but his face is achingly furrowed, his body is trembling, and tears are streaming down his temple. Matthias looks like he has been carrying the world on his shoulder and it just fell around him, broken like glass, carving away at his skin. 

“Matthias,” Nina starts, a small breath, honey lacing her voice. He freezes.

“Go back to sleep.” His tone lacks the usual blankness he wears those kinds of nights. It breaks slightly, an octave too high, something wet and thick stuck to his throat. 

Nina wants to help.

“No.” She raises a tentative hand to his cheek. Surprisingly, he lets her, and she rests it delicately on his skin. She brushes a tear away, feels her own eyes fill with them, warms him with her touch. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Then, as if it was all it took, Matthias breaks down around her. He cries like she had never seen him do before. He weeps, tears falling quicker than Nina can catch them, wetting her skin. Nina holds him close, surrounds him with her arms, tugs him to her. She wants to hide him from the world, tuck him under the covers until he is safe with her. She wants to break whoever did this. 

She passes a comforting hand through his hair, playing with the short blond strands, feeling him nestle himself in her neck. His nose tickles her collar. Her heart blooms. She will break whoever did this. His wails soften to soft and quiet sobs. Nina disentangles his head from the curves of her body, holds him just as close, but looks him in the eyes. His ice blue eyes are red and strained. His lips shiver. Matthias looks thoroughly exhausted. Slowly, Nina kisses his cheek, caresses away the lingering tears with her soft lips. He relaxes in a second, letting his hand run up and down her back noncommitally. 

“Tell me what’s going on.” Her voice is sweet, compassionate, but there is no room for denying her. Nina is done watching her lover agonize right beside her, unable to do anything to help.

“It’s nightmares.” The answer seems strikingly obvious now.

“What do you dream about?”

“Hellgate. The beasts that I’ve killed coming back for revenge. Those I had yet to face tearing me apart like they might have done, should have done. The prisonners surrounding me, overwhelming me, drowning me in a see of people." Then, in a quieter voice, "I dream of you. Sometimes, they’re good. Sometimes, you stab me in the heart. Sometimes, it is I who do so. Those are the worst.”

Nina takes it in. She feels furiously powerless against haunting chimeras, imaginary phantoms. There is not much she can do for Matthias except be there. So she rests her head against his chest, feels his tummering heartbeat, lets him embrace her tighter, feel her warmth, feel her breathing.

“They are only dreams, Matthias.”

“I used to have them all the time.” He confesses. He sounds ashamed. Nina frowns, but doesn’t move. “I used to dream that I killed you. I liked to pretend that I liked it. That I wanted it.” 

Nina is painfully aware of their troubled past, but hearing such a ice cold display of his hatred for her hurts nonetheless. There’s a pinch in her heart, but nothing more. She knows more than anyone that Matthias has changed.

“They were only dreams, Matthias.”

He tears away from her, rolling to his back. “They might not have been. I might have killed you, Nina. I wanted to. I could have.” 

Matthias stares at the ceiling in this cold, distant way, and Nina feels him slipping from her. She feels panic rise in her belly and she sits up, straddling his lap. There, the only thing he can see is her brown curls falling around her shoulders, her sweet and compassionate smile, her adoring eyes. His face softes, and Nina feels him come back to her.

“You are not who you were. You could have killed me, Matthias, but you did not. Even when you had the chance. You are good.”

“I don’t feel good.”

“Good people rarely do.” 

Matthias sighs, letting his hands rest on her hips, his fingers dance on her skin. “I love you.” She grins. 

“I know.” He lets out a chuckle, and then rolls his head back, groaning in shame.

“I can’t believe I cried in front of you.”

Nina lets out a roaring laugh. “Come on. Your masculinity is not that fragile.” And then, she breaks out in a wolfish smirk. “Although, I can make it up to you.”

He gasps. “You are improper, Nina Zenik.” But his head rises from the bed, his lips parting, a silent plead in his mouth.

As she comes down to his lips, Nina whispers, “You love it.”

Matthias still wakes up in cold sweat some nights. But everytime, Nina is there to help.


End file.
